The third episode of Saturday Night Live season 50 begins with an election-themed episode of Family Feud, which pits the Democrat team of Kamala Harris (Maya Rudolph), Dough Emhoff (Andy Samberg), Tim Walz (Jim Gaffigan) and President Joe Biden (Dana Carvey) against the Republicans: Donald (James Austin Johnson), Don Jr (Mikey Day), and JD Vance (Bowen Yang). Melania was supposed to join, but she chose not to show up, much like on the campaign trail. Steve Harvey (Kenan Thompson) hosts.
Harris and Trump square off, trying to name something you could keep in your glove compartment. Harris goes on a long-winded story about her upbringing, before answering “a Glock”. Emhoff parrots her, which turns out to be correct (“a second gun” is the number one answer), while Walz flails by listing a bunch of white nonsense and Biden tries to buy a vowel.
Vance and Junior are ordered not to speak, leaving Trump to go on a dementia-laden rant about immigrants eating Moo Deng. He loses and that’s the game.
Being that nothing particularly newsworthy happened this week regarding the election (outside of the numerous things Trump said that would be immediately disqualifying for any other candidate), SNL was smart to drop the characters into a game show format. It’s just a pity they didn’t let the sketch build to anything memorable.
Also, seeing all of the celebrity guest stars tapped to play the Dems standing next to each other really makes clear how little the show thinks of its actual cast.
Ariana Grande returns to host. The pop star and Wicked co-lead reminisces about how the last time she hosted in 2016, when we were on the verge of electing our first female president (“second time’s the charm”). She also makes it clear that she’s just hosting tonight, although a second later, she’s handed a mic and lays down a Broadway showtune in which she imitates Britney Spears and Gwen Stefani. It’s a solid performance, although somewhat surprising that there’s no joke about her ex-fiance and former cast member Pete Davidson.
The musical antics continue for the first sketch. During a wedding reception, the bridesmaids (Grande, Heidi Gardner, Ego Nwodim, and Sarah Sherman) perform a version of Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso about their bachelorette trip to Charleston where the bride cheated on her fiance with a random guy named Domingo. Domingo (Marcello Hernández) shows up at the end and gets in on the action. Unlike the cold open, this one – like the pop hit it’s parodying – is grueling in its repetitiveness.
This is followed by another musical number, by way of a Dan Bulla short. My Best Friend’s House sees Grande’s bubbly teenager singing her love for her BFF’s house – particularly its cozy aroma. Just when the bit starts to drag it takes a dark turn, when she learns her friend’s endearingly dorky dad is actually a notorious serial killer and the pleasing fragrances wafting through the home were just there to cover up rotting corpses buried all over the grounds.
A young man (Michael Longfellow) introduces his new boyfriend (Yang) to his family. A friendly game of charades turns violent after the boyfriend celebrates a little too hard and pisses off Ariana’s super competitive mother. She immediately starts laying into him as a “pathetic little gay guy” and ridiculing the size of his “toad stool” pecker. It’s only when the boyfriend snaps and ragdolls her (literally), does he earn her respect (and her body). Short and sweet, with Grande showing a talent for rapid fire dialog.
Next, Grande plays Celine Dion (nailing yet another impersonation). She sings a version of It’s All Coming Back to Me about her love for the Ultimate Fighting Championship, all while the camera cuts to gruesome footage from various fights. The best joke comes at the expense of the UFC commentators (such as Joe Rogan): “All bald, and in the shiniest of shirts.”
Musical guest Stevie Nicks performs a protest song, then it’s on to Weekend Update. Their first guest is Monica, a supposedly happy Amazon employee (Nwodim) who is actually and obviously overworked. The jab at Amazon’s inhumane working conditions and the hypocrisy of conscientious American consumers who still order from the company are pointed, but this isn’t as memorable as most of Nwodim’s turns at the Update desk.
A little later, Jost introduces recently reunited Oasis band members Noel and Liam Gallagher (Johnson, Sherman). The constantly bickering British siblings share how their feud started: with Noel telling the Spice Girls that Liam had a crooked knob that “bended like Beckham”. Jost – who’s already bought tickets to their upcoming tour and intends to “mosh out so hard that I win white boy of the year award” – attempts to get them back on common ground.
In Renaissance-era Italy, the prince auditions musicians to entertain him. Two peasants (played by Rudolph and Samberg) bring out their high-voiced son (Grande in a creepy pageboy haircut). It turns out that he is only able to hit those high notes because he’s a castrato. All the talk of “gonads” and “Opium induced comas” in goofy Italian accents is punctuated by Grande’s perfect thousand-yard, dead-eyed stare.
Nicks returns to the stage and plays – to much applause – the classic Edge of Seventeen. Then we get a message from Jennifer Coolidge (Chloe Fineman) for Maybelline. The actor speaks to herself in the mirror – providing Grande with yet another opportunity to show off her celebrity impersonation skills. Some breaking aside, she once again excels; her Coolidge is actually more on point than Fineman’s. Carvey ends up joining in to make it a threesome.
The show wraps up with a classic film noir parody: The Hotel Detective sees Grande play a femme fatale engaging in a convoluted tet-a-tet with the titular dick as well as another detective from the bureau. Grande, Johnson and Andrew Dismukes all nail the mile-a-minute dialogue (even if the cue cards drifts into frame at one point), although the end button revealing it’s all an episode of the Twilight Zone is one twist too many. Still, it’s an enjoyable bit of silliness to go out on.
Grande was good the last time she hosted, but she was great here, elevating even the lesser sketches in what was the second refreshingly solid episode in a row following the disappointing season opener.
